Britain’s leading insurance companies are set to announce a sharp hike in life insurance premiums following a marked increase in the number of people killing themselves to collect hefty payouts.

Toby Carter, CEO of Protected Life Ltd, told us: “Due to the increased instances of people fraudulently claiming life insurance payouts after deliberately taking their own lives, we feel that we are left with no option other than to increase premiums by 20% to cover our losses at this time.

“In the last year alone, 23,000 people have claimed 6 figure payouts after killing themselves and are no doubt now living high on the hog as a result. We, therefore, feel duty bound to do whatever’s necessary to put a stop to it”

This latest move comes just two weeks after leading pet insurance companies announced increased premiums, due to a number of cat owners deliberately kicking their pets…